Springfield's Jimmy Roman Rosario pleads guilty in federal court, gets 10 years, after case thrown out of state court

SPRINGFIELD - In the five years it took to prosecute Jimmy Roman Rosario on drug charges in state and federal courts, culminating in a 10-year sentence Wednesday, a lot has happened.

After law enforcement officials seized $1.7 million in powder cocaine from his Putnam Circle apartment in August of 2006, the case tanked in Hampden Superior Court after a judge gutted the case of its key evidence; it was revived in federal court as Rosario was about to be released; one of the case's investigator's career was ruined in very public fashion; and Rosario is managing his blood sugar behind bars after a diabetes diagnosis as the case dragged.

In a swift proceeding in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, Rosario, 43, pleaded to one count of possession with intent to distribute powder cocaine under an agreement with federal prosecutors that virtually guarantees him a decade in prison. However, he will only have to serve five more since he has been in jail since his arrest five years ago.

Rosario entered the plea in front of several members of a state police-led drug task force, one of whose members was skewered in a decision by Hampden Superior Court Judge Cornelius J. Moriarty in 2008. Moriarty ruled that former Holyoke Police Detective Paul Barkyoumb and a state trooper on the task force created a phony surveillance to obtain the search warrant for Rosario's home.

Members of the team that investigated and arrested Rosario have vehemently denied they did anything improper in the case.

The drug evidence in the case was suppressed and the case imperiled until prosecutors picked it up in federal court, where U.S. District Court Judge Michael A. Ponsor preserved the 17 kilos of cocaine as evidence, prompting Rosario's plea days before the case was scheduled for trial on October 17.

Barkyoumb resigned from the Holyoke police force in 2010 after pleading guilty to criminally harassing his former girlfriend. However, he was arrested for selling cocaine to a police informant in July; that case is pending. Barkyoumb is out on bail but was notably absent from the witness list filed before Rosario tendered his plea.

While in court Wednesday, Rosario calmly answered Ponsor's questions, and said he has survived well enough in prison except for having to manage his insulin levels, he told the judge.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd E. Newhouse told Ponsor four police officers awoke Rosario on the night he was arrested and asked him whether there were any drugs in the house. Rosario pointed to a black bag full of blocks of cocaine in a makeshift closet and to a drawer containing hundreds of baggies filled with the drug.

At the police station, Rosario admitted the drugs were his, the prosecutor said.

"He stated all the drugs in the house were his and there wasn't really anything else to say," Newhouse said.